Tom Popik, research director of Campbell Surveys, said buyers have a number of incentives to pay with cash. “You get about a 10 percent discount on the purchase price,” he noted.

Jumbo mortgages have a higher risk of fraud than conforming mortgages, according to a new report from Interthinx.

The purchase mortgage share of originations is expected to increase significantly, from 30 percent in 2012 to 79 percent in 2015, according to Freddie Mac.

Freddie Mac projects that interest rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages will hit 5.00 percent by the end of 2014, with little impact on affordability.

The decline in the use of proprietary loan mods also has outpaced a decline in foreclosure sales. Some 166,809 foreclosures were completed in the third quarter of 2013, down 2 percent from the first quarter of 2013.

Ocwen Financial, the nation’s top-ranked subprime servicer, was the only firm among the major servicers that increased its subprime servicing portfolio (excluding subservicing) in the third quarter of 2013.

The focus on purchase mortgages became urgent as interest rates started to increase in May, settling for the moment about 100 basis points higher than they were in April, reducing demand for refinances.

The STACR deal was structured so that Freddie Mac will take the first 30 basis points of losses on the transaction, followed by private investors, which bought debt notes on the following 300 basis points of potential losses.

Consumer advocate Mike Calhoun questioned if lenders will offer non-QMs at all, due to the liability posed by such originations and their designation as “less safe” mortgages.

Paul Rozo, who runs PRMG, told us that he is not a big fan of call centers and that every LO in his organization is a “hunter,” a sales person “who relies on referral business and/or handling their own marketing."